The Burning Stone
“Do you see it?” he cried. Beyond, nestled at the opening of a steep valley that cut up into high mountains, lay a walled town. “Brother Amicus says it is Novomo, fully a hundred leagues or more from the convent. One step has brought us this far! We are saved by a miracle!”
“No miracle,” she said hoarsely, “and more likely damned than saved. Is this truly the winter we left behind us?”
But he hadn’t heard her, he was laughing, and slowly the warmth of the day and the high spirits of the others melted into her and warmed her. The memory of poor Amabilia faded, as did the horror of the pit. She had chosen to seek aid from Hugh, knowing what he was, like a desperate woman using a tincture of wolfsbane to treat a child’s raging fever knowing that the ointment was as likely to kill as cure. But they had lived; they had even escaped. For that, for now, she would be content.
As their cavalcade straggled toward Novomo they gained an escort of curious farmers and a handful of soldiers who had hastened out to see who they were and sent a message back to their lady. On the ride, Adelheid could speak of nothing but their mysterious journey.
“Only imagine if we can harness this power! Armies could move swiftly. We could always be a step ahead of our enemies.”
“I beg you, Your Majesty,” interposed Rosvita. “It is dangerous to rely on those who have gone against the church in order to learn such skills.”
“Are you sorry we escaped?” demanded Adelheid.
Theophanu watched Rosvita, saying nothing. She seemed distant, preoccupied.
Rosvita sighed. “Nay, Your Majesty. But our situation was desperate. I would hope never to have to make such a choice again. It may be that we were lucky this time, and might be lost on a second attempt. Nor is it clear to me that such a gateway could accommodate an entire army. Can it be held open indefinitely? Do the gateways only accommodate small retinues? What if clouds cover the sky? In any case, I wonder if we have truly come through unscathed. Doesn’t this landscape seem strange to you?”
“Those are the Alfar Mountains. Beyond Novomo lies St. Barnaria Pass. To the south the road leads to Darre, not more than ten days’ ride. None of this seems strange to me, Sister.”
“Not the flowers, or the warmth? What happened to winter, Your Majesty?”
That stilled Adelheid, and when an elaborate escort, alerted by the scouts, rode out from the city to greet her, she made no mention to them of the mysterious gateway through which they had traveled.
“Your Majesty!” The lady of Novomo dismounted and made her bow. She was shaken by Adelheid’s appearance, and at once she began to look nervously around her at the copses of trees and the fields where dutiful farmers broke the ground for sowing. “God is merciful, Queen Adelheid. We heard that you were dead.”
“Dead!” cried Adelheid.
“You have not heard? The skopos crowned John Ironhead king of Aosta over one month ago, in Darre.”
“King!” cried Adelheid.
“We have been betrayed,” said Theophanu coolly.
But Adelheid was not ready to bow under at the first sign of adversity, not after their astounding escape. “I am not dead, as you see, Lady Lavinia. I can march on Darre to take back what is rightfully mine!”
Lady Lavinia was an older woman with keen brown eyes and the sharp wariness of a lady who has learned to brew her own potions so that her enemies will have no opportunity to poison her through her own laziness. She gestured now toward the raggle-taggle retinue, all strung out behind queen and princess. The horses looked appalling in the clean light of day. Three were already bloating from a surfeit of fresh grass, and one had broken its leg, bolting after it came through the stones, and been put down. Most of the servants were on foot, and even some of the noble companions limped along, their once elegant clothing as filthy as six weeks under siege with only enough water for drinking and cooking could make them. No doubt they all stank, and would have been horrified at their own smell if they hadn’t become accustomed to it.
“I beg your pardon, my queen, but with what army will you march on Darre? Once Ironhead hears that you are still alive, he will send his men to capture you. His spies are everywhere. Indeed, Your Majesty, I cannot march with you because my eldest daughter has been taken to his court to live as a hostage for my good behavior. You will find, I fear, that Ironhead has gathered many allies to him in this same manner. You must free them from their fear for their children before you can count on their loyalty. Many would willingly rally round you, because we know what Ironhead is, but in truth, there must be a chance of victory or we will all lose our lands.”
“If I can raise an army?”
Lady Lavinia only lifted her hands helplessly. She indicated her own escort, handsome enough in their bright tunics, with spears and helmets and a line of clerics carrying incense in polished censers. “Your kinfolk are dead, Queen Adelheid, may God grant them rest. Ironhead possesses your treasure, all the gold and silver and weapons you left at Vennaci. How will you raise an army great enough that the rest of us can trust our lives and land to your cause?”
Adelheid could not be daunted. Perhaps that quality made her shine. She raised an arm to indicate the mountains rising to the north. “I will lay my case before King Henry!”
A ragged cheer rose from Fulk’s soldiers and was caught and echoed by her own retinue.
Lady Lavinia looked honestly relieved. “A wise decision, Your Majesty. I will do my best to shelter you, and I will gladly supply you with fresh mounts and provisions. I have always honored you and your kin, and I would not have you made Ironhead’s prisoner—or his wife. But I cannot offer more than that, not now. My hands are chained.”
“They will not remain chained forever,” declared Adelheid. Less ragged than the others, she had worn her mail capelet for their flight, although a servant now carried her helmet. “Ironhead will never dare pursue us into Wendar, and I know that King Henry will not let this injustice go unpunished. Let us only shelter over the winter with you, Lady Lavinia, and we will cross into the mountains as soon as the passes open in late spring.”
Lady Lavinia got a puzzled look on her face, and her clerics, those within earshot, whispered one to the next. “You have wandered far in the wilderness, Queen Adelheid. Spring and the new year came more than a month ago. Have you no clerics among you to calculate the days? Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Peter the Gatekeeper.”
The third day of Avril!
Rosvita felt dizzy, quite out of her head for a moment until Fortunatus, walking beside her, reached up to steady her where she sat on a placid and bony mule. But she recovered fast enough. She had always had a good head for calculations, and this one took no great skill in any case, not with the signs all around them.
They had stepped into the circle of stones on the third day of Decial, at the full moon. Somehow, in that one step, they had spanned one hundred leagues … and four full months!
5
THAT’S it!” cried Liath. She hadn’t been able to sleep, and she’d been sitting on the bench by the open door, reading with her uncanny night vision under the unexceptional light of a waning quarter moon. “‘At this point it would be well to keep in mind that all bodies have three dimensions: longitude, latitude, and altitude.’ Ai, God! How could I not have seen it before? That’s what I missed!”
Sanglant bolted up from the bed as she swore, a soldier’s curse he hadn’t even known she knew. She clutched at her belly, bit her lip, and grimaced.
“Ah! Ah! Ah! No, no, I don’t need help.” She waved him off, although her other hand still pressed against her abdomen. He held down the bench, which rocked as she rocked with the pain. “It’s passing.”
“Is the baby coming?”
“I don’t know,” she said disagreeably. “Ai, Lady. I don’t want the baby to come now! I’m so close to the answer!” She groped for and found her sandals. “I’m going to walk over to the tower. I just need one more evening—” She cursed again and tossed the sandals aside in disgust,
unable to reach her feet to bind them on.
“I’ll come with you,” he said as she heaved herself up, evidently having decided to go barefoot.
“Very well.” She walked outside without waiting, still muttering to herself. She was in the grip of something larger than he was, the mystery she pursued, or the mystery of childbirth, or both together. Sanglant had seen women in the grip of labor become oblivious to the world as though all of life and the universe had squeezed into a cord that linked them, a solitary daughter, to the holy Mother of Life, She who had given birth to the universe.
He dressed hastily. The Eika dog trotted at his heels. Servants whispered around him, pinching his ears and teasing his hair, but when he didn’t respond, they hung back at a distance and then vanished into the night to their revels. Only the watery nymph whom he had started calling “Jerna” dogged him, slipping along in his shadow as if to keep out of Liath’s sight. The creature’s shape had changed noticeably and disturbingly over the last months. He wasn’t sure if both daimones and humans wore as their material forms a dull likeness of the angels, or if the servants, more essence than substance, merely copied human form while they were imprisoned on earth. But that vaguely female form she had worn was filling out, breasts, swelling, belly rounding in imitation of Liath. Why this yearning on her part? Didn’t the daimones conceive and give birth in the same way as humans did? In truth, her presence had begun to bother him in other ways, just as his eye strayed to Sister Zoë more often than it ought.
It was easy to catch Liath on the path as she waddled along. He touched her on the arm and when she looked up at him in surprise, as if she’d just then realized he was following her, he kissed her. Momentarily distracted from her purpose, she leaned against him, smiling softly, gaze lifted to his face.
In the paddock, Resuelto stood sleeping, one leg cocked. The mules bunched somewhat apart, one resting his neck on another’s withers. It was very peaceful.
“Look,” she said, lifting a finger to touch his lips and then move his chin so that he had to look where she was looking: not at him at all, but at the heavens. “At dawn it will be the sixth day of Avril, and right now, at midnight, we see the same sky that in summer we’ll see at dusk and in winter we’ll see at dawn. There is the Dragon. There. Look. You can see red Jedu leaving the Scales. On the seventh of Avril, she enters the Serpent. The seventh is a day full of power and fluctuation in the heavens, because bright Somorhas and fleet Erekes also shift, moving from the Child into the Sisters. A time of strong beginnings.”
“Where are Somorhas and Erekes?” He could identify many of the constellations now and all of the wandering stars. After so many months with Liath, he could scarcely have failed to learn their names and histories.
“They can’t be seen right now because they’re still wandering too close to the sun. But Somorhas should return as evening star on the seventh, when she moves into the Sisters. Erekes is harder to see. But if we stood beneath the north pole, or at the equator, this sky on this night at this same time would look different. Longitude, latitude, and altitude.”
“It would?”
She took his hand as she started walking again. “The ancient Babaharshan magi and the Aoi sorcerers who taught them lived far south of here. As the observer moves south, the celestial equator moves higher in the sky. So does the plane of the ecliptic. To be at zenith, to ‘crown’ the heavens, means that a star stands directly above the observer at the highest point in the celestial dome.” She stopped again. “Look there. The Queen’s Bow stands almost at zenith.”
“She’s hunting the Dragon.”
“In another few hours, the Queen herself will stand at zenith, and at dawn her Cup and Sword will follow through the zenith behind her.”
“Because of the turning wheel of the stars,” he observed, and was gratified at the sudden, sharp smile she gave him, staggering in its heat.
“Exactly. Which brings us back to the tenth day of Octumbre in the year 735. Five years and five months from now.” Liath opened the door into the tower quietly, and Sanglant glanced up at the beamed ceiling as they entered, but he heard nothing. Severus slept upstairs, and woe to anyone who disturbed him. “Autumn’s sky at midnight is the Child’s sky, she who is Heir to the Queen. The Guivre swoops down upon the Child as she reaches for the Crown, but the Child is not defenseless. She is attended by the Queen’s Eagle, by the Sisters, who are her aunts, and by the Hunter who is also a prince. The Falcon flies before her, and behind her trails her faithful Hound.”
“And even if the planets change over the course of the years, the stars always rise at the same time.”
She hesitated, then laughed. It was such a bright sound that he had to laugh with her, and then he snorted, seeing her glance upward with exaggerated apprehension.
“Come, my love, if you’ll protect me from the fates woven into the stars, I’ll protect you from Brother Severus, no matter how grumpily he descends.”
“Ai, God.” She stiffened suddenly with a hand clasped to her belly. He felt the pain ride her, but she said nothing, only panted to let some of the pain out as he stroked her lower back. The nymph darted out of the night to stroke Liath’s belly, but Liath did not notice, and as she relaxed with an exhalation, Jerna slipped back into a pool of protecting shadow.
Recovering, Liath kneaded her belly with the heels of her hand, chuckling weakly. “I was only going to say that the fixed stars don’t always rise and set at the same time. It’s called the precession of the equinoxes, but the cycle takes place over such a long time, thousands of years—”
“Ai, Lady,” he groaned. “Five years is enough for me. God Above, Liath, just tell me this secret you’ve discovered so we can go back to sleep!”
She found a lantern, brought fire to the wick with a touch; the ease with which she brought fire was never less than startling, although he ought to have gotten used to it by now. Pregnancy had not dimmed her beauty, although certainly she tired quickly these days. Her face was softer and rounder, but her eyes were as brilliant and as fierce and her hair just as likely to escape in curls and wisps from the braid he made of it each evening.
She took the ephemerides out of its cupboard and opened it to the back. He recognized where the precise writing of an unknown scribe ended and Liath’s began, full of ink blots, blurred letters, and sudden breaks.
“If we look at the progression of the planets through the ephemerides …” She turned, pointed, even though she knew the marks were meaningless to him. “On the thirteenth day of Cintre of the year 735, four of the planets will be in retrograde, moving backward along the ecliptic: fleet Erekes at the cusp of the Dragon, both sage Aturna and bold Jedu in the Lion, and stately Mok in the Penitent. This suggests lines of force moving in the universe against established patterns. Only bright Somorhas, shining as the Evening Star, moves forward and on this day enters the Serpent.” Her finger moved off the precise and rather fussy hand of the unknown scribe and onto the pages she had herself filled in over the last seven months. “But by the eighteenth day of Cintre, Erekes and Aturna and Jedu will reverse themselves and travel forward again, as if restoring the universe to its rightful order. Yet in the month of Setentre, two months later, bright Somorhas will go into retrograde, followed in early Octumbre by fleet Erekes. It all culminates on the tenth of Octumbre in the year 735. Aturna and Jedu will stand at the cusp of the Lion and the Dragon while Somorhas and Erekes move in retrograde through the Serpent and Mok slides in retrograde along the cusp of the Penitent and the Healer. The waxing crescent Moon, which by midnight will have set below the horizon, will be in the sign of the Unicorn. The Sun at midnight sleeps at the nadir of the heavens in the sign of the Serpent, the harbinger of death and change who shucks one skin only to live again newly reborn in another.” She lifted both hands, palms out to mark a point flatly made. “But we live in the northern latitudes. In the latitude where the Babaharshan magi lived in their ancient cities, on the tenth of Octumbre in the year 735 at midnig
ht, the Crown of Stars will crown the heavens.”
“But that’s exactly what Wolfhere—” He broke off. Through the open door he heard the night breeze sighing through trees and, half hidden in the rustle of leaves, a scuff like that of a large animal moving along the ground. Mice skittered in the walls behind the open cupboard where the magi stored their apparati: an astrolabe packed in velvet in a rosewood case, an armillary sphere that showed the motions of the heavens, a celestial globe with the stars marked out as pinpricks of silvery paint. A shutter creaked. “That’s exactly what Wolfhere said to me.
She had to brace herself on the table either from another wave of pain or from the shock. “He lied to me,” she whispered. “He must have known she was here all along.”
“Liath—” He lifted a hand to warn her. A footstep pressed the earth outside. Jerna, hovering near Liath, suddenly darted away and folded itself into the metal bands of the armillary sphere until it became only a shimmer among shadows.
“You are wakeful,” said Anne as she crossed the threshold. She did not ask what Liath was doing; she did not need to.
“We commonly reckon a year by the return of the sun,” said Liath, not looking up. She still breathed hard, as after a footrace, and her gaze seemed fixed on some sight beyond the book that lay open in front of her. “The Babaharshan magicians reckoned a year by the precession of the equinoxes, when all the stars would have returned to the same places from which they had started out and by this means restored the same configuration over the great distances of the whole sky. One of their ‘years’ would count as tens of thousands of years as we reckon years.”